Saori Makishima
Saori Makishima (槇島 沙織, Makishima Saori) is an avid fan of the otaku culture and is the moderator of "Otaku Girls Unite!", an online community centered around anime fans, as Saori Bajeena (沙織・バジーナ, Saori Bajīna). Appearance Saori is a tall teenage girl usually depicted wearing thick glasses, denim pants and a green long-sleeved plaid polo shirt. She also wears a yellow bandanna on her head and usually sports her long hair in two ponytails. When she takes off her glasses, she is noted to be a beautiful woman who fits her rich position. Personality She possesses an alternate personality which emerges whenever she communicates through the Internet; Kyousuke notices this when he talked to her through a messaging service once and comments that she speaks (or types, rather) in a refined manner. However, when she talks to people over the phone or personally, she is more cheery and uses the copula "-de gozaru" to end her sentences. Also, her choice of honorifics are distinct between her two personalities; she usually uses "-sama" to refer to familiar persons online, and "-shi" elsewhere. Saori appears to be calm and collected at all times, even when relatively unfamiliar people insult her hobby. She is also seen to cherish the bonds she makes with close friends, to the point that she got mad (a rare occasion for someone like her) at Kirino for leaving without telling her friends about her decision. She dislikes her sister Kaori greatly due to a misunderstanding in the past; mainly the dissolving of 'Secret Garden' and abandoning her. As such, she was determined to form her own group 'Otaku Girls Unite' under encouragement from Kanata, who passed on her trademark round glasses to her. She then created the outgoing personality Saori Bajeena '''to mask her usual shy self and created a forum to gather members for her group- all in all to show Kaori that she too, can stand on her own and not need a sister like her. Saori appears in the anime to be rich to a certain extent, living in an extremely fancy and luxurious accommodation, eating classy food and dressing fancily, as well as having her own butler. Like her sister, they both have a lot of money that are usually spent on their otaku hobby and their other interests. Plot The Fateful Offline Meeting During the time when Kirino joins the "Otaku Girls Unite!" online community as '''kiririn, Saori, as the moderator of the group, already has an offline meeting planned for the members of the group to meet and greet each other personally and she quickly invites her and another new member to join the party. The event was held in one of Akihabara's maid cafes, and it turns out to be an overall success, with everyone managing to create circles of friends within the group, except for Kirino and a girl who later introduces herself as Kuroneko. Seeing that the two struggled in interacting with the other members, she held a separate "after party" for the two and also invited Kirino's brother Kyousuke, who came as Kirino's back up, to come along. Saori patiently endures the harsh words targeted by Kirino and Kuroneko against Saori and each other as they do some shopping around Akihabara. By the end of the after party, Saori considers the three as her newest friends, and even sees a budding friendship between Kirino and Kuroneko.Oreimo Light Novels Volume 1, Chapter 3 A Dangerous Package Several days after the offline meeting of Otaku Girls Unite, Saori has been in close touch with her new friends, although she didn't get Kyousuke's contact details during their first meeting. She eventually got the chance after she gave Kyousuke some tips in navigating through the online game Imouto Taisen Siscalypse. To Kyousuke's surprise, however, Saori uses his number to send a mysterious package to Kirino while she was busy with the friends she invited over to the Kousaka's Residence. Kyousuke quickly finds out from Saori that it contained several doujins, with some R-18 ones, so he was forced to retrieve it before it could be revealed to her friends who don't know about her hobby. Kyousuke manages to keep Kirino's hobby a secret at the cost of being kicked out of the house until the visitors leave. Memories of Summer Comiket Saori gets a call from a distressed Kyousuke at the start of summer vacation, wanting to find a way to cheer up Kirino after his careless mistake had ruined her mood and to give her some nice "summer memories" before her intense track-and-field training could begin. Saori decides to invite him and Kirino to the Summer Comiket, and both agreed to join. Relationships Kyousuke Kousaka After meeting his rambunctious younger sister, Saori also becomes attached to Kirino's brother, Kyousuke, whom Kirino drags along when attending her first offline meeting with the otaku community she joins. Along with Kirino and Kuroneko, Saori considers Kyousuke a trusted friend whom she can open up to. Due to sharing the same mindset, often times they would help one another in maintaining the bond they shared as a circle or a group of friends. Whenever Kyousuke faces a struggle regarding her interactions with Kirino, Saori would do anything in her power to assist her fellow comrade. The same goes for the latter also, hence, they appreciate each other's assistance greatly. Though Saori also has a tendency to tease Kyousuke. Noticing Kyousuke's loneliness after Kirino's departure for America, Saori along with Kuroneko, took daily visits at Kyousuke's room to comfort him. During an argument over who would be Kyousuke's caretaker when he was forced to live alone to study for his mock exams, Saori volunteers to look after Kyousuke herself, making the other girls feel jealous, but sadly, she wasn't chosen. Overall their relationship with each other remained platonic at best. Despite Kyousuke's shock after discovering Saori's ojou-sama side, the two continued to act normally. In conclusion, Saori is the only one of the few female characters who hasn't shown any signs of romantic attraction towards Kyousuke. In the game version, Happy End (PlayStation 3) and Tsuzuku Wake ga nai (PlayStation Portable), they have their own route and in the end, the wedding day of Kyousuke and Saori appeared. Kirino Kousaka Saori was very grateful to have Kirino be a part of her community as well as her friend. She would often treat Kirino with otaku goods and wouldn't hesitate in going out on an outing with her. The two immediately forged a strong bond, to the point that they are barely seen arguing, and instead are mostly seen smiling and having usual conversations that benefit one another. Like with Kyousuke and Kuroneko, Saori treasures Kirino so much to the point where she admits that she was quite mad at Kirino for leaving for America on such short notice. Nonetheless they still remained very close friends even after Kirino's return. Kuroneko Like with her circle of friends, Saori greatly values her time with Ruri. Along with Kirino and Kyousuke, Saori and Ruri are frequently together when going out and are always watching each other's backs. Considering they're both otakus, they also share a common interest, which adds to the friendship between them. Kaori Makishima In the past, the two sisters didn't interact much with one another due to Kaori's adventurous nature. Even after introducing her to her otaku circle, the Pretty Garden, little to no progress was developed between the relationship of the two sisters (unbeknownst to Saori, Kaori felt somehow jealous towards Kanata and Saori's frequent bonding). Eventually, Saori began to look at her sister with animosity after Kaori announces her early marriage to the circle (leading to the Pretty Garden's disbandment for the time being), and after being pointed to her her little importance to the circle itself by her sister. As the years go by, Saori continuous to hate her sister as shown when Saori felt frustrated by Kaori's presence when together with her own circle. Soon afterwards, the two sisters reconciled. Kanata Kurusu Kanata Kurusu is Saori's best friend and mentor. When Saori was introduced to the Pretty Garden, Kanata took the shy girl under her wing. When the Pretty Garden disbanded, Kanata gave Saori her favorite glasses, and encouraged Saori to create an Otaku community of her very own. Trivia *"Bajeena" comes from the name "Quattro Bajeena" which is one of the pseudonyms of Char Aznable, a character from the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise. However, to avoid copyright infringement, the romanized spellings changed to Vageena in the anime series. References Category:Characters Category:Females Category:Makishimas Category:Pretty Garden Category:Otaku Girls Unite!